Open Airways: Stories from the back of the ambulance
Distracting Injuries
Nanci Medina
“[They] never followed up on why I passed out. I think they either assumed that I fell or tripped or whatever, but it never occurred to them to really look past that.” UCLA EMS instructor Nanci Medina learned firsthand the importance of looking past distracting injuries when she became a patient herself. Click to listen to her story.
Open Airways is a project to capture an oral history for the benefit of the EMS Community. EMS responders share some of the most meaningful cases of their careers, sometimes with humor and always with compassion. We hope that they will help us improve your practice and inspire a new generation of caregivers.
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I can tell you when you are an EMS person, they as your team in the class dont treat you as a patient even if something happens in a class even. I am from Texas and we had a practice day for intrapement in a car, an I was the patient, they got me out rough and then took me to place me on the ground to support me to the backboard and when they were counting to put me down , the person at the head just dropped my head from knee high and, I slid and hit the pavement . The C-collar they had me in was to big and they looked at me and asked if I was ok I said my head hurt ,but I will be fine, I took the c-collar off and we all went inside to finish class, I told the instructor that saw what happend I di dnot feel so well he gave me a tylenol and said I would be fine it was not that high of a drop. Two days later I was in the hospital, with major fainting spells and had to be checked and had a dislocated jaw and a sprung neck. Needless to say I missed three weeks of class and a doctor bill from hell and the three students that dropped me had no remorse at all and went on to be EMT-P. So I learned from that point on always ask more questions until you feel good about what happend to the patient and where they are hurt,and what lead up to the problem. Thank You for your time, just wanted to share what could happen if you are not treated correctly by EMS members that are your own team in class, and how some instructors treat things that they see happen. Julya from Texas